Life for gunman who killed Toni-Ann

Friday 4 August 2006 23:00 BST

A man who gunned down a seven-year-old girl and her father in cold blood is in prison after being jailed for a minimum of 40 years.

Twisted drug-dealer Joel Smith remained defiant to the end, making an obscene gesture to detectives at the Old Bailey as he was led to the cells after being given two life sentences for murdering Toni-Ann and her father Bertram (Tony) Byfield.

Toni-Ann had been shot in the back as she ran from the room where moments earlier she witnessed her father gunned down.

Smith, 32, of no fixed address, was told by Mr Justice Gross: "However grimly accustomed one becomes to violent crime, there is a particular horror in the shooting in the back at close range of a seven-year-old girl. That is the hallmark of this case."

Recommending Smith serves a minimum of 40 years for Toni-Ann's murder, the judge said he regarded her killing as exceptional, saying: "She was a lively seven-year-old, full of hope and excitement ... not withstanding a somewhat chaotic background."

Smith had caused the death of her devoted father, Tony Byfield, probably because of robbery in a drug-related crime or in an assassination attack, said the judge. He recommended Smith serve a minimum of 33 years for Mr Byfield's killing.

Toni-Ann had spent the day out with her father buying a uniform for her new school. Father and daughter then returned to his room in an ex-offenders' hostel in Kensal Green.

Mr Byfield, a drug-dealer himself, had been shot once before and was vulnerable to robbery, said Richard Horwell, prosecuting. Smith was a self-confessed robber of drug-dealers. Smith arrived just after midnight. Shortly afterwards a neighbour heard four shots and then silence.

Smith left, believing he had committed the perfect crime by leaving no witnesses and no clues, but the murders "shocked the nation", said Mr Horwell, leading to friends and acquaintances of Smith coming forward as informers because of his confessions to them later.

But by the time of his trial he was in denial and pleaded not guilty to murdering Toni-Ann and Tony Byfield, 41, in September 2003. He maintained that another man later told him he had shot Mr Byfield after discovering "something was going on" between Mr Byfield and his girlfriend.